Whenever a significant honors show nears, there’s always an outcry for the addition fresh award types to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and satisfy the passions of fans who have specialized interests.
My colleague previously argued advocating for terror-themed awards. That would rule. So would strategy board titles, this being someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance when I prioritize because like all dedicated enthusiasts, I possess a compelling case for why my demand remains most pressing and important of all. The demand is this: We need an award type for logic-based games.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre defies precise measurement; opinions vary greatly, and it will always spark debates resulting in unclear classifications. There’s a reason movie academies avoid this approach. But it is a necessary evil in the world of video games, which are so diverse they hardly constitute as a single art form.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of interactive entertainment excellence to receive acknowledgment, and to ensure all game types to have a chance for representation, classification by type becomes crucial.
Existing Game Classification System
Prominent interactive entertainment events presently include genre categories for Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these award types actually cover numerous genres, and you can find room for most games within them.
Not so for puzzle games. No appropriate category exists to put them. Think about these this year’s best games, all very different: building puzzles in a particular game, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. What category would fit them among existing types? Nowhere, that’s where.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens of brilliant puzzle games released every year without proper recognition in entertainment awards, if they accidentally match classification types such as Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.
- A renowned logic title received no recognition completely in 2014
- Another imaginative release received no nominations during that ceremony
- Popular arranging title got ignored that year
- Just some puzzle games scraped into small studio or handheld classifications
Significance of Puzzle Games
Frequently they represent compact experiences, however the design behind logic titles carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games stand as most engaged experiences worldwide and have been for an extended period.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with well-known building titles for the title of most purchased experience; it also contends as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones within interactive entertainment, while interacting with diverse game types.
Proposal and Rationale
Logic titles wouldn't face such difficulty. It would be easy to populate five nominees with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
Restating the point, these are games without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers operate at the challenging frontier game development, producing among the purest expressions of gaming itself. Comparable to film action specialists, they warrant appreciation. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.
